Thank you.
Good morning.
I have not agreed to appear here or at other committees to act as a proxy for any side in what has devolved into a rabid partisan fixation for or against a public inquiry. Instead, I am here to raise an alarm and say something that might help you and Canadians navigate reports about Chinese interference, a matter that I once spent a lot of time reporting about as an investigative journalist. I’m also doing this in the faint hope that a few of you will hear what I have to say and then do something about it.
I have been a reporter and writer for almost 40 years. For much of that time, I was an investigative reporter at CTV, CBC, The Globe and Mail and The Walrus magazine. I have written a lot about intelligence services. That work led to a book called Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada’s Secret Service. It is one of only two books of any consequence written about CSIS. My book exposed CSIS for its systemic laziness, nepotism, corruption, racism, lying and law-breaking that you and other Canadians haven’t heard or read much about lately.
I am familiar with China's covert influence campaigns. I wrote a series of front-page stories about Chinese influence efforts throughout Canadian society while I was at The Globe and Mail in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It’s an old story. That reporting culminated in a story about a joint RCMP-CSIS probe called Project Sidewinder.
Sidewinder was intriguing for several reasons. Its central finding, that the PRC was working with triads to infiltrate almost every aspect of Canadian life, was so controversial that then CSIS director Ward Elcock publicly dismissed the probe as, in effect, crap. A senior CSIS officer ordered all copies of the report destroyed. A surviving copy of the report made its way to me and subsequently onto The Globe’s front page.
Here is where my reporting and much of the recent reporting about Chinese influence differ. Sidewinder included the names of a slew of well-known companies, organizations and high-profile figures that the RCMP and CSIS believed had been compromised by the PRC. At the time, my editors and I agreed that it would be irresponsible to publish their identities when relying solely on a 23-page report, even if it was marked top secret.
Here is the other reason I have agreed to appear. A kind of witch hunt-like hysteria is being ginned up by scoop-thirsty journalists and what is likely a handful of members of Canada’s vast and largely unaccountable security intelligence structure. It’s dangerous. People’s reputations and livelihoods have been damaged. Loyal Canadians of Chinese descent, including one of your colleagues, are being tarred as disloyal to the maple leaf.
The special rapporteur found that Global TV’s egregious allegation about Mr. Han Dong was categorically false, but Mr. Dong, unfortunately, is not alone. CSIS officers have even accused veteran police officers, who have risked their lives to protect the communities and the country they have served honourably for decades, of being compromised by the PRC. It is shameful, and this and every other committee examining this matter are duty-bound by decency and fairness to finally hold CSIS officers to account for smearing Canadians because of their phantom ties to China.
I have provided this committee with a copy of a just-published 1,800-word column I wrote that exposes the horror that two brave police officers and proud Canadians have had to endure at the inept hands of CSIS for the past three years. I urge you to read it. If you do, you will understand the deep damage CSIS has done to Paul McNamara, an ex-Vancouver police undercover officer, and Peter Merrifield, a serving RCMP officer, and their families. It smacks of guilt by association that makes the innocent appear guilty.
What happened to Paul McNamara and Peter Merrifield is evidence that, first, as a Federal Court judge ruled in 2020, CSIS has “a degree of institutional disregard for—or, at the very least, a cavalier institutional approach to—the duty of candour and, regrettably, the rule of law.” In other words, CSIS lies and breaks the law. Second, in February of this year, NSIRA issued a report that found that CSIS fails to consider the damage it routinely does to the lives of the Canadians it targets and their families.
That’s why I am urging this committee and every other committee examining this matter to invite Mr. McNamara and Mr. Merrifield to be witnesses, so they can tell you directly about the profound human consequences when CSIS gets it so wrong. If you won’t listen to me, then listen to these two wronged police officers, who deserve to be heard.
Thank you.